Come Little Children
by PosionQuill
Summary: "Be careful out there. You don't want Jack Frost nipping at your nose..." Jamie begins to worry when some children in his town start to go missing without a trace. But surely playing with the blue-eyed boy he met in the park would do no harm, right...?


**"Be careful out there. You don't want Jack Frost nipping at your nose..."**

Jamie Bennett used to love playing out in the snow with his friends. While it was cold, it was always so much fun. Building large snowmen and giving them funny faces, going down steep hills on his sledge, avoiding being hit in the midst of a snowball fight. It was the perfect way to let the time go by while waiting for Christmas, which was his favorite holiday of the whole year.

But then children started going missing.

At first it was just one little girl. She was a little bit older than Jamie's sister, Sophie. The little girl was a few years below him in school, and wasn't a sibling of his friends, so even though she lived on his street he didn't really know her. But apparently she never came home from school one day. He remembered watching the sirens go past his room that very evening as the police drove over to her house. It did scare him a little, and even though his mother offered to help put up flyers with the little girl's face on it titled "Missing" he felt that the town soon moved on, too busy to remember her after the first year. Besides, she had disappeared a few months before Christmas, so while everyone said they had the thought of her in their hearts he never really heard anything about her from the neighbors after January.

Then, with Easter right around the corner, another child went missing.

Jamie didn't know this child either, other than the fact that he lived on the other side of town. This child went to another school, so it wasn't until he heard his mother talk about how sad it was in hushed tones on the phone that he realized it. This reminded him of the first girl; a pang on guilt struck through his heart, as he had completely forgotten about her until then. He wondered if the police thought that this boy and the case of the little girl had anything in common.

There were no children going missing throughout the summer, but there was still a strange kind of tension lingering in the air. Parents were more careful about letting their kids out to play, asking them where they were going and when they were getting back, much to their children's annoyance. Some parents even insisted on driving their kids to school instead of letting them walk or get the bus, and their curfews were often cut.

It was during September, the second day back to school, when the next child vanished.

This girl was just above Jamie's grade this time. He'd seen her in the halls every now and then, talking to her friends and playing with the pigtails her hair was often in. This left him with a sinking feeling in his stomach. Evidently his friends felt the same. They all looked at each other in the hall during the next assembly, announcing that this girl had in fact gone missing. Their minds felt numb while the teachers gave advice on how to stay safe while walking to and from school, one thought on their minds:

 _Who will be next?_

Halloween was next to cancelled that year. The few who did go out kept in groups of their other friends who were allowed, and one or two of their parents would act almost as bodyguard while they walked door to door.

Jamie's house only got about three visitors that year. As Sophie munched on the candy apples, he made a joke to his mother about how much candy they bought this year was wasted. She didn't laugh.

When it really hit Jamie how sad it was, that all these children were going missing, was in late December that year. It was nearly Christmas, and so the houses were decorated beautifully, seemingly imitating gingerbread houses. The flickering lights on the streets were bright and warm, giving the world that dreamy magical feeling that only Christmas time could give.

But despite the decorations, the rushing shoppers in the street and the snowflakes drifting innocently through the air, Jamie couldn't put the thought of those children out of his mind. Where were they? Were they still alive? Did they just run away? Have their parents bought them gifts, in the hope that they are found before Christmas? Will their parents even celebrate Christmas without them?

This was still in the back of his mind as he went to knock on his friend's doors.

"Sorry," Pippa had said, a worried look on her face, "My mom said I'm not allowed out because... you know..."

It was the same story with Cupcake, and Caleb and Claude.

He didn't have much hope when he asked Monty.

"You probably shouldn't go out anyway, Jamie," He'd warned after explaining that he, like the others, weren't allowed out (to be fair, it was a miracle that Jamie had convinced his mother to let him out in the first place). "Even if you don't...y'know...you still could catch a cold or something."

So there he was on the swings, with his favorite book, alone in the park. He was weary, but he didn't think he would end up...however the others had. If anything had happened to them at all. _I mean, come on!_ , he thought to himself, _It's the middle of the day! Nothing bad would happen in broad daylight, right?_

And that was when a gust of wind blew the book out of his hands.

Jamie gasped, and ran to pick it up before another gust blew it even further away. And then, wiping the snow off the pages before it melted and ruined the paper, he looked up. Between the trees, he could have sworn he saw someone walking into the woods. That someone had unnaturally white hair, and a blue hoodie coated with frost, and that person's feet were bare.

 _He must be freezing..._ Jamie thought to himself. "Hey!" He called out, hoping the boy could hear him. But the boy continued walking further into the woods. But then he stopped, and Jamie then saw the icy wooden staff held in his hand. The boy turned around, and a chill went down Jamie's spine when they made eye-contact.

The boy had eyes that were shockingly blue, and almost glassed over, like ice. They almost glowed, and when he smiled Jamie found himself letting go off his book, letting it fall into a puddle that hadn't quite iced over yet. His feet moved without him telling them to. One part of his brain nudged and prodded at him, telling Jamie that he should be scared and that he should run away as fast as he could, leaving his book.

But the rest of him seemed to be completely okay with whatever was happening. After all, the boy only looked a bit older than him, and even though he'd never seen him in school before Jamie believed he must be friendly. Besides, it was Christmas! Nothing bad ever happens at Christmas...

Before he knew it, Jamie was in the woods, standing in front of the boy with the blue eyes. Now he was so close, Jamie could see just how pale the boy was. His skin was like a resin doll, and if he squinted he was sure he saw that the boy's skin was in fact covered with a layer of frost. Or maybe his skin was made of ice.

"Do you want to play?" The boy asked, and Jamie felt his head nodding.

The boy's eyes lit up and his smile widened.

Jamie found himself running, skipping and dancing deeper and deeper into the forest. The boy, singing and laughing, was leading him past the trees for what felt like a very long time. Yet at the same time it was like not even a minute had passed since he was in the park with his book.

"Isn't this fun?!" The boy would ask as they played in the snow. And Jamie would agree that yes, he was having a great time. And the boy would laugh. But his laugh seemed to come not from him but from the woods itself. His voice seemed to crawl through the snow, up the ice on the trees and even on the snow that fell from the sky. It left Jamie with a rather uneasy feeling in his stomach.

Jamie didn't remember when they built a snowman, but there it was when he got up from the cold ground. Its stone eyes didn't reflect any light, yet they held more life than the cold blue eyes of the boy. Jamie felt his hat being snatched of his head by long, thin finger, and he saw the boy bring it over to the snowman and placed it carefully on its head. "There we go," he said gleefully, "Now he's perfect!"

Jamie stared at the lopsided smile, and the rather deformed body, and couldn't help but feel like it wasn't as perfect as the boy thought.

"Wait." He said. Then the boy, using the hooked staff he held in his hand, drew a circle in the snow around the snowman, almost as if it would give it protection. He stood next to Jamie, and Jamie suppressed the urge to jolt away at the impossible coldness of the boy's hand as he put it on his shoulder. Even through his layers of clothes he could feel how freezing the boy's skin was.

Jamie wanted to ask if he felt cold at all, but that was when he caught a glimpse of someone.

It was a short boy, with dark skin and a striped scarf wrapped around his neck. His skin was covered in a shimmering layer of frost, and he had a frown that seemed frozen onto his face. His curly hair had snow stuck in it, and his eyes were dark and hollow; they were glassy like the boy's. Originally they may have been a lovely warm brown, but it was hard to tell due to his glazed over pupils. They were white like a dead fish, and full of heavy sadness. This shocked Jamie, and it felt like he swallowed his tongue and his heart dropped into his stomach.

"Wh-who's that- that boy over th-there?" He asked shakily. The blue-eyed blue rolled his head to gaze unfazed at the dark-skinned boy, and shrugged, "He doesn't want to play with us." Was all he said.

Jamie stepped away from the boy with blue eyes, and his eyes caught sight of another person.

Behind the snowman was a little girl, probably only in first grade. Her hair was black and curly like a china doll, and her pale skin was frozen over just like the other boy. Jamie remembered her big blue eyes from the "Missing" posters, and snowflakes had stuck to her long eyelashes. Her mouth was fixed into a gloomy pout. The tears on her cheeks had frozen into tiny icicles, and the snow on her big pink coat looked fresh, as if she'd...

...as if she'd been buried in snow.

The gasp caught in Jamie's throat.

"What's the matter?" The boy asked, actually sounding confused.

Jamie turned to him, and behind the boy stood a girl with pigtails. Her eyes, like the first-grader and the boy with the scarf, had glazed white pupils. Jamie recognized her from school.

"Why...why...?" Was all he could say as he looked at the bodies of the missing children.

"What's wrong?" The boy walked up to him, icy waves radiating off his skin.

Jamie took off further into the woods, running as fast as his feet could take him. Several times his heart skipped as he slipped in the ice, and each time he got up and made sure to look behind him as he took off again. He felt sicker and sicker as he spotted dozens of other dead children hiding between the trees, staring at him sorrowfully.

He couldn't see a clearing in the forest, so he just continued running, hoping that soon, _soon_ , he'd see his town again or at least a cottage to take refuge.

He made the mistake of looking behind him, and when Jamie looked back to the front he smashed into something solid, much harder than a tree. Like a statue made of ice.

He fell to the floor, and felt a previously-loose tooth rolling around on his tongue. He reached into his mouth with cold fingers and took it out, before looking up to see what he had ran into.

It wasn't a tree.

It wasn't an ice statue.

It was the boy.

"Why are you running?" He asked, his pupils now covered with that same deathly white. "Don't you want to play anymore?"

The boy wasn't even touching the ground anymore. He was levitating, his staff held loosely by his side.

"No!" Jamie shouted, terrified, "I want to go home!"

Then something about the boy changed. It was like something broke under his skin. Like when you dip an ice cube into a cup of warm water and the inside cracks.

His dead eyes contorted to an almost - almost - sad look, and his head tilted. Again, there was that cold gust of wind that, if Jamie wasn't already on the floor, would have knocked him over.

"Home...you want to go home...?" He asked, confused, "But...I thought we were having fun."

Jamie felt hot tears go down his cheeks, before the sting of cold took away the warmth. "I want to go home..." he whimpered.

And that was when the boy's eyebrows crossed, and his eyes glowed with rage.

"If you want to go home..." he seethed, "then GO HOME!"

Jamie quickly go to his feet, and the boy continued to scream as Jamie ran for his life.

"GO HOME! LEAVE! GET OUT! _! ! !_ "

His voice radiated through the snow, making it feel like his shrieking voice was just behind Jamie, clipping at his toes.

After what felt like a frightful eternity of fleeing for his life, Jamie began to slow down. He stumbled onto a tree, and tried to catch his breath.

Oh, why hadn't he stayed in the park with his book?!

The sky was beginning to darken, and Jamie was realizing just how cold it was outside. So he wondered around, scared or bumping into a dead child or the boy who must have caused their deaths, and tried to find his way out of the woods.

But it didn't seem to work. All he could see were trees, trees and more trees, all thickly coated with harshly cold snow.

His feet felt numb, and it got hard to move his fingers.

The skin on his face and ears felt raw and painful, like the cold had grown a hand and slapped him.

The woods were dark now, and Jamie found himself bumping into trees and tripping on fallen twigs and branches. It felt like it took all his strength just to get up and carry on walking.

"S-s-so c-cold-d..." He whispered, his lips being forced apart as they were nearly frozen together. His whole body shook with the cold, and it began to get difficult to keep his shaking legs walking and walking and walking.

His felt ice beneath his feet, and he lost his footing.

Jamie fell onto the hard ground, the only thing cushioning his fall was his coat and the freezing snow. He didn't get up this time.

It was hard to see at the angle he was in, but Jamie knew that the children from before were getting loser to him. Were they going to hurt him? Or were they just going to watch him die?

 _Die...I don't want to die!_

Jamie thought of all the things he hadn't done. He was just a kid! He couldn't - shouldn't - die so young! He wanted to live! He wanted to go home to see Sophie and his mother, and play with his friends, and - although he never thought he'd say it - he wanted to go back to school!

Then a coldness like no other seized his skin.

The boy's hand was clamped around Jamie's neck as he was rolled onto his back, unable to resist.

The boy, with his unnaturally white hair and his blue hoodie coated with frost, and his feet that were bare. And his eyes that had been dead for a very long time. That boy had knelt down, and held onto Jamie's neck like a vice. Only this time, his coldness spread over Jamie, sealing his throat shut, and turning his skeleton into brittle stone. It felt like a white film had gone over his eyes, and his skin twisted and went rigged, shifting from soft and human to cold and hard like porcelain. A layer of frost went over his skin, his hair, his eyeballs.

All his could see was the boy's glowing blue eyes, and all he could hear was him saying on repeat, "Don't leave me alone...don't ever leave me...ever..."

Jamie's body stilled.

The boy got up, and stared for hours and hours until Jamie's whole form was buried thickly in snow.

The last thing anyone saw from Jamie Bennett was his Mysterious Times book, laying in a cold, half-frozen puddle.

. . .

 **Um.**

 **Well I hope you enjoyed this mildly disturbing story. (Oh god why did I write Jack like that I'm terrified)**

 **Lots of love (and apologies for giving you this nightmare fuel), The Panda**


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